One year ago today, a group of Marines, U.S. soldiers and Afghan security forces were pinned down in a kill zone near Ganjgal, Afghanistan, a remote village in the unforgiving, mountainous terrain of Kunar province. At this point, the basic details of what occurred that day are well known. Repeatedly denied air support and artillery by officers at a nearby forward operating base, they were left to fend for themselves against more than 100 well-entrenched insurgent fighters. Three Marines and a Navy corpsman were killed on the battlefield, and a U.S. soldier died Oct. 7, 2009, from medical complications that…
Browsing: Combined Joint Task Force 82
Today, Marine Corps Times published online my story outlining the heroism of Cpl. Dakota Meyer, a rifleman and scout sniper who found himself in the middle of horrific ambush in eastern Afghanistan last year that ultimately claimed the life of five U.S. troops. To get that story, I relied heavily on more than 300 pages of sworn witness statements and other documents compiled by Combined Joint Task Force 82, which conducted the investigation in Afghanistan in the days following the Sept. 8, 2009, attack in Ganjgal, a remote village in Kunar province. Even though the documents were already redacted when I…